The Guardian view on Kemi Badenoch and the Iran war: confusion reveals a lack of serious thinking | Editorial

The Guardian view on Kemi Badenoch and the Iran war: confusion reveals a lack of serious thinking Editorial The Tories and Reform UK have abandoned British interests to become ideological satellites of radical US conservatism B ritain is one of many countries that would benefit from the replacement of brutal theocracy with democratic government in Tehran. The Iranian people would be the biggest beneficiaries. It does not follow that British interests are served by the current US-Israeli military campaign against Iran, which claims regime change as a goal but includes no credible strategy for achieving it. The distinction was never hard to grasp. Sir Keir Starmer understood it and kept his distance from Donald Trump’s war. The leader of the opposition was not so judicious. In the first week of the conflict, Kemi Badenoch accused Sir Keir of indecision and cowardice. She thought the absence of a legal mandate for war was irrelevant and called for the RAF to be more involved. The Conservative leader no longer holds that view. Or, rather, she denies having held it. She says that she did not call for Britain to join the US-Israeli action, but did call for British forces to strike targets inside Iran and that those are different things, although she struggles to explain how. Mrs Badenoch’s confusion expresses conflicting impulses. Her first instinct was unwavering alignment with the White House. That position seemed all the more attractive when Mr Trump declared himself “disappointed” with the prime minister, whom he denigrated as “no Winston Churchill”. If there is a vacancy for a Churchillian avatar in the US president’s imagination, Mrs Badenoch fancies herself as a candidate. But a week is a long time in war. It is now clear that Mr Trump has blundered into an open-ended conflict without having thought through the predictable economic consequences of a campaign that drives up oil prices, disrupts trade in the Gulf , spooks financial markets and stokes inflation. Reluc...